With the onset of Artificial Intelligence which is a big part of machine learning solutions, the human race seems to take a backseat and people feel that their intelligence is getting challenged by their competitor- Artificial Intelligence.

But, is this really true? In this article, we will be discussing about the pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence and how this technology has benefited the world. Also, after moving ahead, we will be discussing how artificial intelligence will be impacting the future of humans & will it completely move one step ahead of the humans? You will find answers to all these questions ahead.

Sci-fi has the ability to give the human personality a chance to envision the impossible. This has been displayed in the science fiction films of past days, which portrayed robots doing work for people, and people controlling robots according to their impulses and likes. Ever have you wondered what innovation this brilliant creative ability depends on? Man-made brainpower or AI? Today AI has made some amazing progress and is an integral part of our lives, regardless of whether it is climate forecasts, or email to the executives or voice-empowered gadgets. The base for these unpredictable errands are AI calculations that make the machine knowledge spring up. Yet, this was not generally the situation. We should think back in time and perceive how AI achieved the functional platform it remains on today.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Before we dive in the detailed explanation, let’s first understand what exactly is AI. From chatbots to smartphones, AI has already made its place in our day-to-day lives. And with its emergence and popularity, this technology seems to take a step ahead in our lives. The benefits of using AI and positive user feedback is enticing more & more software development companies to adapt & use this technology.

Self-driving cars or SIRI, the most common and top examples that can be used to properly describe the AI technology. If you break up the terms: ‘’Artificial’’ ‘’Intelligence’’- an artificial technology that makes use of the intelligence provided to solve various problems in the different situations. With the advances in this particular technology, it can feature just anything from Google’s search algorithm to the autonomous weapons.

But, the question that arises here is, has Artificial Intelligence moved ahead of the human brains? Will it take over the future of humans? Will humans lose jobs? These are some of the questions that you will find the answers to in this article.

The experts have anticipated that the organized artificial intelligence will intensify human adequacy, yet in addition undermine human self-sufficiency and capacities. They talked about the wide-running potential outcomes; that PCs may coordinate or even surpass human knowledge and capacities on errands. For example, complex basic leadership, thinking and learning, advanced investigation and example acknowledgment, visual sharpness, discourse acknowledgment, and language interpretation. As per the experts, the smart systems in the networks, in vehicles, in structures and utilities, on farms and in business procedures will spare more time, cash & lives and offer open doors for people to appreciate a more-tweaked future.

The following diagram shows the comparison between the human brain and a supercomputer:

Will Artificial Intelligence take up human jobs?

With the developing publicity around AI, comes significant worry among laborers dreading for their occupations, and which is all well and good. For each feature referencing the development of the AI business, there’s another that offers a viewpoint on how and why AI is a danger to human occupation. One study found that about 37% of positions in the U.S. could be “powerless” to AI by the mid-2030s. This study, alongside endless sources referencing AI’s danger to human occupations, might miss a basic component – the requirement for human enthusiastic knowledge and information investigation. In the event that we investigate the particular ways, AI is improving the working environment for HR experts, obviously the human factor won’t become out of date, despite the fact that jobs of representatives may change.

Human intercession is basic to the eventual fate of AI—and AI is basic to guaranteeing HR pioneers can keep on moving from playing out a carefully authoritative capacity in an organization to turning into a vital accomplice and benefactor. We’ve exposed that AI is representing a noteworthy risk to employments—so by what means can, HR pioneers make the most out of this developing innovation fragment? As we keep on applying AI and mechanization to HR forms, we should investigate the representative lifecycle, from enrolling and onboarding to off-boarding and outplacement, and everything in the middle.

Summary:

Human insight revolves around adjusting to the environment making use of the mix of a few of the psychological procedures. The field of Artificial intelligence centers around structuring the machines that can imitate human conduct. In any case, AI experts can go similarly as actualizing Weak AI, yet not the Strong AI. Indeed, some trust that Strong AI is not just possible because of the different contrasts between a computer and human brain. In this way, right now, the insignificant capacity to impersonate human conduct is considered as Artificial Intelligence.

Likewise, the usage of human consciousness will clearly make life considerably increasingly advantageous for mankind in the years to come and even power people to develop their ranges of abilities, it will maybe never be feasible for such machines to totally supplant the human asset.

Yet at the same time, it has given modern-day con artists a versatile tool for ripping off the unsuspecting and unwary. Today’s internet scammers, just like the charlatans and snake oil salesmen of yesteryear, are after one thing: your money. New research from Bromiumreveals that cyber crime in 2018 is projected to yield criminals more than $1.5 trillion.

During the holiday season, the number of fraudulent websites will increase. Cyber criminals are unscrupulous, but they’re also creative. They excel at making fraudulent websites look like the real thing.

If you plan to shop online (who doesn’t?), pay close attention to the following and you can start detecting a fake website in about five seconds.

1. Poor Grammar and Spelling

Major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, and Best Buy spend millions of dollars annually on marketing. This includes spending money on experienced copywriters. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar are checked and rechecked by editors before it goes live.

Typically, cyber criminals do not have the time, resources, or mastery of the English language to avoid these errors. If a website has odd phrasing, questionable punctuation, or incorrect spelling throughout its copy, alarm bells should be going off in your head. Chances are that the site is fraudulent.

2. If the Deal Is Too Good to Be True…

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are some of the best days to get deep discounts on the products you have wanted all year. Retailers offload goods from the current year to make way for the next year’s models.

But they are still in the business of making money. If you visit a site and see the latest iPad Pro on sale at a 95% discount, know that you have a 99% chance of never seeing the thing after you pay for it..

3. Look at the Website’s Connection Type

A website with the “HTTPS” tag is more secure and trustworthy. A site that has the “HTTP” tag is not. It’s that simple. With the former, a site has gone through security certification that the majority of illegitimate sites ignore. There are a few things to keep in mind:

Sites with “HTTPS” connections can still be unreliable. Use the connection type in conjunction with other forms of verification to determine if the site is trustworthy or not.

Verify that the payment page is a “HTTPS” page.

Click the padlock on the upper left corner of the URL to verify the details of the site, such as the encryption used.

4. Check the Domain Name

A favorite tool of scammers is to create website addresses that are close but not exactly the same as large brands or companies. They hope that you will not notice that yahoo.com has been replaced by yah00.com or that Amazon.com has been replaced by Amaz0n.net.

They are betting that you’re going to skim over the address bar and the domain name. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to double check your address bar if you are redirected to a commerce site from another page.

5. How Old Is the Domain?

Amazon was founded on July 5, 1994 in Seattle, Washington. Its website Amazon.com was founded on October 31, 1994. This information is easily available using the Whois Lookup domain tracker https://whois.domaintools.com. Any site founded in 2018 claiming to be Amazon.com is fraudulent. The same is true with other websites.

Cyber criminals hope that their victims either do not know how to or simply will not research the age of the last-minute fraudulent sites they put together around holiday time. They hope that their real-looking websites will be enough to trick people into handing over their personal information.

When you look up a website and see how long it has been in business, you get a good overall sense for its veracity.

6. Run a Virus Scan

A website that has more pop-ups than legitimate content should be viewed suspiciously. While the mere presence of ads on the site shouldn’t be taken as positive proof of fraudulent intentions, this could be an indication that viruses, malware, or phishing attempts lie in wait.

Make sure you’ve had a recent virus scan and don’t be shy about running another one just for kicks. It’s easier to stop malware at the gate than try to root it out after it’s in your system.

7. Only Use Secure Payment Options

Legitimate e-commerce websites should offer standard payment options, including major credit cards and PayPal. If you are being asked to purchase your new iPad using a money order, a wire transfer, or some other form of unsecured and non-refundable payment, run away. This is true even if the rest of the site looks legitimate.

Look for approval by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) or similar organizations. While hackers often think to include a shoddy replica sticker proclaiming their safety, rarely do they bother to link it back to the actual issuer. Hover your cursor over the sticker and see where it leads.

8. Take Basic Steps To Secure Your Computer

Even cyber security professionals find themselves inadvertently visiting fraudulent and potentially dangerous websites, so it’s reasonable to expect that the same thing will happen to you. However, there are some basic measures you can take to secure your computer and its contents.

For example, keep up with system and software security updates. Updates can seem like an annoyance, but they are designed to cover security holes that cyber criminals have found. This includes keeping your OS and all other software that runs on your computer up-to-date.

Choose a strong, no-logging VPN service to keep your data private when surfing the web. Through data encryption, It prevents cyber criminals from learning information such as your location and internet usage habits. It allows you to safely navigate the web anonymously.

Keep your firewalls enabled. They serve as a barrier between your computer network and the Internet. They protect your computer by stopping threats from entering the system and preventing threats from spreading between your devices.

Adjust your browser settings. This allows a high level of privacy while you browse and will prevent websites from tracking your movements by blocking cookies. Many safety options are disabled by default. You may be unwittingly exposing yourself more than you think each time you browse.

The Bottom Line

Online shopping is an awesome experience as it allows you to search for what you want from the privacy and comfort of your home. Millions of online transactions are made yearly with no issue.

Don’t be afraid of shopping online, and don’t be afraid of fake websites. Simply empower yourself by knowing what to look for and use common sense. If it doesn’t feel right, run away.

By doing these things, you will be able to take control of your online experience.

Enjoy 2019 with these New Year Freebies!https://www.noupe.com/essentials/freebies-tools-templates/enjoy-2019-with-these-new-year-freebies.html
https://www.noupe.com/essentials/freebies-tools-templates/enjoy-2019-with-these-new-year-freebies.html#commentsThu, 08 Nov 2018 13:56:19 +0000https://www.noupe.com/?p=106851]]>

2019 is just around the corner and preparations for the new year have already begun.

This year, the folks over at Vexels created this cool freebie to give your designs a special touch.

With these badges, illustrations and icons, your New Year graphics will surely have a fun and unique look.This freebie includes +130 graphics in multiple styles, and everything comes in multiple formats too!

Let’s say you receive a form submission and want the information you just collected displayed on a single PDF document. Easy enough. Just copy the information, open a new word processing document, paste the information, and then save the whole thing as a PDF.

But what if you wanted to turn 100 form submissions into their own separate PDFs? That would require some serious legwork, not to mention it’s tedious.

That’s why we, as a leading online form creator software, are proud to introduce JotForm PDF Editor, a new way to automate polished, designed documents that you can share, download, or print with the click of a button.

Responses you receive through your online forms are instantly and automatically turned into elegantly-designed PDFs. No copying and pasting required.

How does this help you? Imagine you manage a restaurant and you’re using a JotForm job application form to hire new kitchen staff. You can send out an online application form like you always have. But when the responses come back, they are converted into beautiful PDFs that you can instantly forward along to colleagues, send back to the applicant, or keep for your own files.

It’s the same information you’ve always collected, only now the final document is far superior.

Below are a few standout features of JotForm PDF Editor.

Design

The beauty of PDF Editor is the ability to design your PDF however you’d like, including the ability to add sections, custom colors, and numerous fonts. You can even include images and your company logo. It requires very little effort and even less skill; just click and drag sections and text along a handy grid. You also have full control over how you’d like your response information to appear on the document, which can be displayed in landscape or portrait orientation.

100+ Templates

Designing a PDF with PDF Editor is a cinch, but if you wanted a jump start we have more than 100 snazzy PDF templates you can choose from. There’s one for just about any reason you’d need a professional PDF, including medical consent, supply requests, event registrations, and agreements. Best part? They’re free!

Automate

A single online form can generate thousands of custom different PDFs — a new one created every time someone responds to your form. This level of automation is uncommon in the world of PDFs. Online forms are easier for your clients and colleagues to fill out, so you get more responses. And the work of turning the information into polished PDFs is automatically done for you.

Password Protection

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Are your PDFs to be read by a chosen few? Then password protection is your best friend. In our layout settings, just select “Enable Password Protection” and then type your new password. Only those people with the password will be able to access your document.

Easy Sharing

JotForm PDF Editor makes distributing your new PDFs incredibly easy, boosting communication between colleagues and clients. When you’re in preview mode, you can toggle between the PDF submissions you receive and then download, print, or share in a single click at the top of the screen. The share option prompts an email draft with the attached PDF that you can immediately send.

Fillable PDFs

JotForm’s hallmark Fillable PDF Creator is now included as a feature in PDF Editor. Quickly build a PDF form with fillable fields that sends response information directly to your JotForm inbox. Now this feature is updated to make your fillable PDFs more customizable and attractive. To use this feature, make sure you and your respondents use Adobe Acrobat Reader when filling it out.

Electronic Signatures

You’ve always been able to collect e-signatures using JotForm. But now you can automatically have collected signatures stamped on new PDFs whenever someone submits your online form. Given how easy it is to fill out a JotForm form — even on mobile devices — your clients can sign agreements from wherever they are without hassle. No printing, scanning, or headaches necessary. Then you can return a signed agreement to them with a single click.

Functional Integrations

JotForm PDF Editor integrates seamlessly with Google Sheets, DropBox, and Box so that the PDFs generated from your form responses automatically send to cloud storage systems your team depends on.

Do you have an image file must be converted into a PDF file for, let’s say, a report due soon, or an important email that a vendor, customer, or employer wants? Not sure where to go for help?

We’ve got you covered!

After a little digging, we found some of the best and, more importantly, free websites out there that can turn images into PDF files seamlessly, regardless of whether you’re using a macOS or Windows operating system. The websites that we’ve found can create PDF files without compromising the quality of the original images.

Before we begin, we should mention that it’s possible to convert images into PDF files without the use of the third-party software programs that we’ll outline below. To do this, scroll down on this page to a section titled, “Convert an Image to a PDF Without Any Software in Two Steps.”

We do, however, suggest that you use one of the three programs that we’ve found. Thanks to additional features offered by the third-party software programs, you can merge, combine, split, and extract your PDF or images. These handy tools also have a drag-and-drop feature and support almost all formats, including JPG (JPEG), TIFF (TIF), BMP, PNG, and GIF files.

Running into problems with creating or editing PDF files? Our comprehensive PDF editing guide probably can help you with that.

With this website, you can combine multiple images into a single PDF file easily. There’s no file size limit for images that you want to upload, convert, and download; however, you can only upload up to 20 images at a time. The website optimizes your images automatically once it is downloaded. As an added bonus, Jpg2pdf doesn’t leave a watermark on your images.

The website is easy to use, thanks to its drag-and-drop features:

1. To get started, open the jpg2pdf web page, and click on the “JPG to PDF” tab.

2. Select images from file folders or your desktop, and drop it into a rectangular box with a prompt that reads, “Drop Your Files Here.” Clicking “Upload Files” will allow you to select images manually from your desktop or file folders; these chosen images will appear automatically in the “Drop Your Files Here” box.

3. If you want to select more than one image, press the “Command” button on Mac, or “CTRL” button on Windows, and click on the images that you want to upload.

4. Click “Download” on each image in the upload field to generate your PDF file. To combine multiple images into one PDF file, click the “Combined” button below the image upload box; your PDF file should download automatically.

iLovePDF is very popular web-based PDF editor. Users can create an account and buy a premium plan, at $4.99 a month, to take advantage of additional image extraction services and downloads, but you still can use the free version of iLovePDF to convert a JPG file to a PDF. You also can use this tool to convert Microsoft Word documents — those with .doc or .docx extensions — into a PDF file.

1. First, go to the iLovePDF home page and select “JPG to PDF” from the list of available options.

2. Select images that you would like to upload from your desktop or file folders, drag it to the iLovePDF web page, and drop it when a “Drop files here!” prompt appears; the upload process should begin automatically. You also can select images to upload manually from your desktop or file folders by clicking the “Select JPG images” option.

3. If you want to select more than one image to upload, press the “Command” key on your Mac keyboard, or “CTRL” key on your Windows keyboard, and select on each image.

4. Once your images are uploaded, you can change the image orientation (portrait or landscape) and margins (no margin or with margin).

5. To complete the upload process, click on the “Convert to PDF” button at the bottom of the web page. Your PDF files should be converted and downloaded automatically. If not, click “Download PDF” to obtain your PDF files.

JPG to PDF has two versions tailored specifically for Mac and Windows operating systems. Although you must download the software program to access any features, conversions happen more quickly than other web-based image conversion programs because it is not contingent on access or connection to the internet. Here’s the catch, though: converted images have a watermark on it. To resolve this issue, you must pay $35 a month to register for upgraded program features.

1. To start off, download the program and open it. Select photos from your desktop or file folders to upload, drag the images to the open JPG to PDF Converter program screen on your computer, and drop it onto the “Drop Your Images Here” area.

2. You also can select the “Add” button at the top left-hand side of the screen to select images from your desktop or file folders.

3. Once you’ve uploaded your images, click on “Convert Now!” at the bottom right-hand side of the JPG to PDF Converter program screen.

Another free image converter program is SmallPDF, which allows users to convert PDFs to any format, including Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) and Excel (.xls or .xlsx) files.

1. On the SmallPDF home page, the select “JPG to PDF” from the list of available options.

2. Upload the files that you want to convert by selecting images in your file folders or on your desktop, dragging it to the rectangular “Drop images here” box, and dropping the files into the marked area. You also may select files to upload manually by clicking the “Choose file” option in the “Drop images here” box and choosing images from your desktop or file folders.

3. After uploading your files, click on the “Create PDF Now!” button at the bottom right-hand side of the rectangular box.

With dozens of options available on its website, PDFCandy might as well be a PDF candy store. OK, that may be a little corny, but you get the idea. There are many opportunities to make the most of your PDF files with this software tool, but we’ll just focus on converting image files (namely those with .jpg extensions) to a PDF.

1. On the PDFCandy home page, select “JPG to PDF” from the list of available options.

2. Click on “Add file(s)” to select images on your desktop or in your file folders for PDF conversion. You also can select images from your desktop or file folders, drag it to the “Add file(s)” box, and drop it there to upload.

Ever read through a document and found an image that you wanted to download and use (with permission, of course)? Were you vexed after realizing that the document was a PDF file and thinking that there may be no way to get the image you want?

We know your pain, and we’re here to help.

We found a few websites that could help you on your next search and, in some cases, cost you nothing at all. Need some help with creating or editing PDF files? We’ve got you covered with our handy PDF editing guide.

Much like PDFaid.com, this website allows you to extract images from PDFs, as well as convert files with varying formats into PDFs. Image extraction services are free for the first five downloads. Users must create an account and buy a premium plan, at $4.99 a month, for additional image extraction services and downloads.

1. First, select the “PDF to JPG” menu option on the website’s homepage.

2. Choose a PDF file for image extraction by clicking on “Select PDF file.” You also may drag an image from your desktop or folders and drop it onto the web page.

3. Once you’ve chosen a PDF file, select the “Extract Images” option that appears in a new web page before clicking on the “Convert To JPG” button at the bottom of the screen.

This free, no-frills website allows you to extract images from PDF files, as well as convert images into PDF files. With this tool, PDF files can be converted to any image format, including those with GIF, TIFF, and JPEG extensions. You also can extract images from any PDF and download it using either JPEG or TIFF file extensions.

1. Click “PDF Extract Tool” on the PDF-online.com homepage.

2. In the new web page that appears, click on “Choose File” in the top box to select a PDF file for image extraction and then click the “load PDF” button to the right of the box.

3. In the middle box, select the “images” tab and choose the file format for the image that you’d like to extract.

4. After making your selections, click “Apply..” button on the right hand side of the middle box.

5. Images extracted from the PDF file will appear in the bottom box for you to download individually. Start the download process automatically by clicking on the images.

With dozens of different options available on its homepage, this free website is a one-stop shop for PDF files. Name a task that you’d like to complete, and there’s a good chance that PDFCandy can make it happen, whether it’s adding a watermark to a PDF or converting a PDF to an RTF (rich text format) file.

1. Select “Extract images” from the list of options available on the homepage.

2. In the next web page that appears, click on the “+ Add file(s)” button to upload a PDF file for image extraction. You also may drag an image from your desktop or a folder and drop it onto the web page to start the upload process.

3. The extraction process should begin automatically and be complete within a minute or two.

Time is the most valuable thing in every person’s life – regardless of career, lifestyle, or income.

In these days of quick tech advancements, it is highly inefficient for anyone to spend time printing out a document, sending it off to recipients, asking them to sign, then having them returning it to be filed.

Thanks to free online PDF signing tools, no one has to go through those steps anymore. Now, you can quickly sign PDF documents with electronic signatures, also known as, e-signatures.

Using an e-signature to sign documents is a commonly accepted practice. It is quick, easy, secure, and professional – all things you want your brand to be associated with.

To save you time, we’ve created a list of our top five free PDF signing tools for 2018. In this list, you’ll not only learn about the best free online PDF signing tools, but also how you can use them to sign documents in less than five minutes.

The five signing tools listed below are web-based and free. They are compatible with Windows 10, Mac Os, Linux and Tablet, Mobile and smartphones, iPad, iPhones, and Chromebooks.

PDF Filler is one of the easiest ways to sign PDFs online. This website supports Word documents, PowerPoint, PDF and Text formats.

Something unique about it is that you can enter the URL to the document you want to sign, meaning that you don’t need to have the document stored on your computer before you even sign it! You can also retrieve it from your email inbox or third-party apps like Google Drive, Dropbox, Office or Box.

Below is a step-by-step guide to signing a document with PDF Filler:

To get started, type in the URL and upload or drag and drop your document using any of the options listed above.

After uploading your document, click the Sign button.

Now, you are shown different ways you can add your signature. You can type, draw, capture with a camera, scan a QR code or upload an existing image of your signature.

Below, we’ll show you two ways you can add your signature using this tool.

Option 1

Typing:

To do this, you simply type your name in the text box and click the “Sign” button to create a handwritten version of your signature.

You then place this signature in the space or field in your document. That’s it!

Option 2

Upload image:

If you already have a saved photo of your signature, you can simply upload that by clicking the “Upload” button. The image can be a PNG, JPG, or GIF. We recommend using either PNG or JPG formats because they render predictably on all operating systems and browsers.

PDF Filler cleans up the image and gives you the option to make it cleaner.

Once you’re satisfied with how it looks, you can place it in the space or field in your document and you’re done.

SmallPDF is another easy and free online tool to sign and edit your documents. Benefits of using it include its cloud-based saving option and other converting media files from one type to the other (I.e., PDF to JPG, PDF to Word Doc). You can see all these options on the SmallPDF homepage.

The process to use SmallPDF’s eSign is similar to the both PDF Filler and PDF Buddy. You can enter the URL and drop your file into the box or upload a file from Google Drive or Dropbox.

Once you have uploaded your file, you will be asked to choose how you want to upload your signature. You can draw it with your fingers, upload directly from your device, or capture an image with your camera.

If you are using a smartphone, you can use your phone’s camera and if you are using your computer, you can use your webcam.

After choosing the “Camera” option, make sure to allow “Camera Request.” This grants SmallPDF permission to use your webcam.

Take a steady and clear picture of your signature on a piece of paper.

Then, you simply click, “Place Signature” and insert it into the document wherever appropriate.

HelloSign is more than a simple PDF signing tool. It integrates with your business and helps you create customized agreements with clients, employees, and partners really easily. HelloSign has catchy slogans like ’eSignatures Simplified,’ and works with some of the biggest companies in the world, such as Lyft, Samsung, and Twitter.

They provide high-level security for the documents and signatures, and also keep the process simple.

Here are the steps to use HelloSign to sign PDF documents.

To get started, type in the URL. Once you’re on the site, make sure to create an account. After your account is created, click on the “Sign Documents” option on the top right menu bar.

Next, you’ll be asked to “Create a Signature” and given the option to draw, type, or upload an image through your computer or smartphone.

For this example, we will choose to upload an image with our signature.

After you upload your signature from your computer, smartphone, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, etc., HelloSign will ask you to upload your document, then click “Fill Out and Sign.”

You’ll then be asked to add your signature by typing, drawing, uploading, or using a pre-saved signature. Don’t forget to click the “Save” button after creating or uploading your signature.

Once saved, simply click the “Add” button and insert your signature into your PDF file. Both your document and signature will be saved, so you can use it again when you need to.

And there you have it – the top five free online tools for signing documents in 2018! Learning how to edit PDFs can be challenging, but these tools can save you a ton of time, which will make you more efficient and keep you at the top of your game.

Know of any other PDF signing tools? Please share in the comments below.

If you want to switch your online shop to Magento, you should definitely check out Argento. Argento isn’t just a theme; it is more a platform that delivers both design and advanced features at the same time. We took a closer look at it.

Magento, the World’s Most Popular E-Commerce Solution

Magento is the most used popular e-commerce solution on the web. After Adobe’s recent announcement of taking over Magento this summer, the amount of users is sure to rise further.

Based on PHP, the Zend framework, and a few other tools, such as Symfony, Magento is a solid foundation for any e-commerce site. Started as an open source project in 2007, it was taken over by eBay in 2011 and sold to a private investor in 2015. Now, Adobe is known to be the official next owner.

Regardless of this colorful history, Magento has always been a consistent solution under continuous development and has always offered a free community edition. Users that need support and additional features for large shops can choose between paid variants.

Making purchases from the sofa is becoming increasingly more popular. (Photo: Depositphotos)

Argento Turns the Magento Engine Into a Car

As similar to WordPress, Magento is the engine powering the vehicle, you have to take care of the body and the other features that make driving more comfortable yourself. This is where the Argento theme comes into play, which we want to introduce you to today. Argento runs under Magento Community and Enterprise, supporting both the version 1 and the version 2 of the software. For version 2, not all, but almost all modules have been adjusted accordingly.

Basically, calling it a theme is not accurate, as it associates the idea that all you get is a pure design, and nothing else. This alone doesn’t define Argento.

Argento in design version Stripes. (Screenshot: D. Petereit)

Argento: Not a Pure Theme, But an All Around Package

Argento comes with six different designs, some of which are vastly different from each other, and suitable for shops of different branches and sizes. This easily covers the visual needs of any new online shop.

Of course, all of the designs are responsive, allowing you to freely sell your products to mobile users without any issues. Nobody should leave this potential untapped. The integrated AMP support that makes your users receive the much faster accelerated mobile pages is important for mobile usage as well.

Argento in the design variant Pure. (Screenshot: D. Petereit)

Argento contains more than 20 modules that improve your shop’s functionality. The designs are also conceived as modules, to make their handling easier. The appearance can be adjusted from a very polished design backend, without any tampering with the code. Here, you best choose the creation of a theme derivative (custom theme or sub-theme), so that future Argento updates don’t come with extra effort.

Argento also takes care of the search engine optimization. According to the developers, more than 40 modifications have been made, even fixing SEO laws in the Magento structure.

Especially Important: GDPR out of the Box

For the European market, it is especially interesting that Argento comes with a module for the compliance to the GDPR. This lets you collect the required consent, store it, and give the users transparent access to their compliance at any time, while also enabling deletion requests.

Argento: Lots of Feature Modules

The modules it comes with include indispensables, such as Sold Together, which lets you show your customers which products are typically purchased together with the one they’re looking at, as well as Smart Suggest, which allows you to give your customers intelligent suggestions based on their purchase history. The module Rich Snippets ensures a meaningful display of your products in the Google search results.

Argento in the design variant Flat. (Screenshot: D. Petereit)

Other modules, such as Navigation Pro, Ajax Search, or Easy Tabs take care of UX improvements to your shop. This includes improving navigation or search functions, or the ability to organize extensive product descriptions in tabs.

Argento even provides a module that reminds your customers to rate their experience. As you can see, this whole thing was thought out very well.

According to the creators, Argento, developed by Templates-Master/Swissuplabs, is already being used by over 2,500 shops, and is getting excellent ratings. Over 160,000 lines of code are not only a sign of quality, but they show that this solution certainly isn’t lacking professional ambitions.

Argento: High Functionality, Low Price

Despite the described scope of functions, Argento is not an expensive product. Instead, you can already get the entire package for a one-time payment of 125 USD. And this price already includes the installation in your shop by Templates Master staff.

If you choose the optional monthly support, you’ll pay 25 USD a month. However, this lets you access all future updates, as well as continuous support. This offer is not mandatory, but maybe recommendable, depending on how important your shop is for earning your livelihood.

Aside from the free installation, the Templates-Masters won’t leave you alone during the rest of the theme configuration either. The documentation is extensive, an FAQ section answers the most important questions, and a personal support helps with special problems.

Awesome, great work! Aside from stereotypical self-adulations, Dribbble, one of the international design community’s favorite services, does have something to offer. Even if you had already written off Dribbble, read the following article.

In fact, it does happen quite often that I end up asking myself why the respective creator thought he would have to make his “achievement” available to the community. Do you want an example? Here you go:

Even more noteworthy than the questionable design product are the comments on it, going “Smooth,” “Awesome Work,” and “Nice!”. No idea what kind of reflex mismanagement to blame for that. The frontal cortex is full of wonders.

In other cases, there’s at least a “concept” up for discussion, and, due to the enormous size of the platform, there are always people “discussing.”

Dribbble defines itself as “Show and tell for designers.” “Do whatever and talk about it” would be a valid title as well.

In the more extended version, Dribbble describes itself as a platform where designers can show their work, or at least what they’re trying to create at the time, in the form of screenshots. In theory, other community members are supposed to comment on the shown drafts. The creator is meant to benefit from what’s supposed to be a true exchange. As we all know, a factual exchange is always good. With some good will, we could even (mis)understand Dribbble as a tool for design reviews.

This theory doesn’t survive the reality check, though. In the vast majority, the only interaction taking place is giving a “like” to a Shot (which is the name for the individual presentations on Dribbble). Most of the time, there are comments as well. I wouldn’t sum this up as a “factual exchange,” though. The only comments you’ll find are supposed delightful chants, like “awesome,” “lovely,” or “great work.”

The recipients of these comments feel obliged to ecstasize other designers as well, and thus, they wander through Dribbble to leave their awesomes, lovelies, and great works somewhere else. Because of this, the service works like a real Perpetuum mobile where everyone convinces themselves of their top-notch content by assuring others that their content was top notch. To my knowledge, there are no studies on whether the excessive use of Dribbble leads to psychological disorders, like narcissism. However, it is imaginable.

At the end of the day, one could conclude that Dribbble is a superfluous place for designers with too much time and too few customers. However, this would be way too short-sighted. In fact, there’s legitimate use to be drawn from Dribbble. Let’s see how that works.

The keywords are curation and inspiration, as well as a mix of the two. Our crucial tool in the following process will be the Dribbble bucket lists, which you can think of as drawers that you sort different pieces of clothing into.

#1: Dribbble as a Source of Inspiration

The raw size of the Dribbble community alone guarantees that the platform is a representative profile of the branch. Shots are uploaded in quick succession, covering all areas of creative work in the digital space. Thus, for inspirational purposes only, it is worth checking out the “Recent Shots“now and then.

Here, I recommend installing the Chrome expansion “Booom” in advance. The extension, which is also available for Safari, significantly boosts the handling of Dribbble. Using it, the display of the shots is larger, and they can be liked or moved into the bucket list from within the feed. Both actions could previously only be done in the detail view. GIFs automatically start on the list. Booom also improves the display on screens with higher resolution. This way, shots are displayed in better quality. When opening them, the @2x-version is used. “Booom” using an infinite scrolling is useful as well. This allows you to get into a literal scroll flow.

Aside from the shot view “Recent,” there are “Most Popular,” “Most Viewed,” and “Most Commented.” It is possible to filter within these lists. For us, the interesting filters are “Animated GIFs,” and “Shots with Attachments.” More on that later.

The search bar at the top lets you find shots you may be interested in via free text search. If you want to be inspired regarding icons, enter the said term, and see what Dribbble has to offer.

Dribbble: the result of the free text search for icons. (Screenshot: D. Petereit)

At the latest, this is where our bucket lists come into play. For instance, you could set up bucket lists on the different topics you’re interested in. In a bucket list called “Website Inspiration,” you’ll collect appealing web design drafts from now on. Use another one called “Icon Inspiration” to collect parts of the search result mentioned above. Set up as many sensible bucket lists as you can manage.

Adding shots to the list can be done from within the overview if you have installed “Booom.” If not, you have to enter the detail view of the respective shot first. This is done with a click on the preview in the overview.

Bucket lists can be created comfortably, by clicking the bucket icon. This opens an overlay that lets you choose whether you want to add the selected element to an existing list, or if you want to create a new one.

Intuitive management of your bucket lists. (Screenshot: D. Petereit)

In case you have a lot of lists, filter the stock by entering an appropriate keyword, or a combination of multiple search terms. Keep in mind that the results get increasingly narrow the more specific the keyword combinations get. A somewhat generic search is recommended for when you cast your net for the first time.

Up to this point, this is pretty good and useful. However, Dribbble becomes even more helpful when you tap the creative energy of other curators. Next to the bucket icon, you can see how many buckets the displayed shot is in already. A click on the info opens a list of according lists, which is where you find the real gems.

Here, you can see how many buckets the selected shot is in already. (Screenshot: D. Petereit)

The number of people putting tons of effort into this kind of curation is not insignificant. This is a way to get hand-picked shots that mostly deal with the same topic you looked for in the search function. Go through the promising bucket lists, and add the most exciting shots to your lists, or follow the creators of the list.

The display of the bucket list is sorted chronologically, by the way. The buckets with the newest entries are at the top. The further down you get, the more static the lists become, as they haven’t been updated in a while. Lists that are older than three months without new additions can be considered abandoned, and the shots within are outdated.

If you’re already active on Twitter, connecting Dribbble to Twitter is recommendable, as Dribbble automatically suggests people that you follow on Twitter that have an own Dribbble profile.

Over time, the described methods get you a whole bunch of lists with inspiration on the different topics with relevancy to you.

Small sidenote: if you have found a complex icon or another design element that sparked your interest, why don’t you use the shot as a background layer in the design tool of your choice, like Sketch, and use it as a draft? Of course, this is not me suggesting plagiarism. You should always add your personal touch, but this should make things much more relaxed.

#2: Dribbble as a Collection of Resources

Aside from its function as a source of inspiration, a bit of effort can turn Dribbble into a source for helpful design resources. Here, the above-mentioned filter called “Shots with attachments” comes into play. Applying this filter means that only shots with a file attachment are displayed. This is not always, but rather often, a sign of free content.

Using the freebie tag is more reliable. Here, you only get to see shots that have been assigned with the tag “Freebie” by their creators. Thus, you can be sure that these are free-to-use elements. Though, you still have to check the respective usage conditions of each specific shot.

Within the shots from the freebie tag, the order is chronological. The most recent contributions are at the very top, the older ones are further down. Via click, you can change this order to “Popular,” to see them sorted by popularity, although the calculation does not seem fully transparent.

If you don’t want to load the shots right onto your hard drive, which should be the case in a collector session, you can fall back to the concept of bucket lists. You could collect free icons sets in a list called “Icon Freebies,” and PSD templates for websites in a list called “Template Freebies.”

Usually, the shot is downloaded via the external websites of the respective shot creators. Thus, approach the download with the needed caution, and pay attention to the usage conditions.

If you want to make things even more comfortable for you, visit the platforms that have made it their task to curate the best Dribbble freebie shots. This way, you don’t have to search yourself.

Unfortunately, all the external services are only taken care of sporadically, so they’re not very up to date. This goes for Fribbble, as well as Freebbble, and DB Freebies. Since the services have already reached a total capacity of way over 1.000 free resources, searching on there is worth it nonetheless.

Instead of wasting your time with Candy Crush, or by going through irrelevant tweets, you could use your time on the train, the toilet, or in the boring team meeting to learn CSS or to refresh your knowledge.

The Toolbox: Pivot of the Designer Existence

If you read what I write now and then, you’ll notice that I always try to make sure that your toolbox is up to date. My toolkit contains pretty much every tool that I could ever need for writing, developing, and designing.

This is what you’ll look like when your toolbox is empty. Don’t let it get this far. (Photo: Pixabay)

Snippets are a rather significant factor as well. I used to have a giant collection of different code snippets in individual txt files. This was in the noughties, though. Back then, the services that help us manage our toolboxes didn’t exist yet. And storing your code snippets as individual text files on the hard drive was far from optimal. Just considering how long it took for me to find what I was looking for. I don’t even want to think about it.

Today, I store storage services. Meta. Sure, I still store some individual snippets in Evernote. And this cloud service is also where I keep all other digital tools and services that I consider to be a part of my toolbox.

CSS in 30 Seconds: Goldfish Mode Learning

Today, I added a new helper, the snippet collection “30 Seconds of CSS”, populated by the user who goes by the name of Atomiks on Github. It contains snippets for 18 common application cases, including the still not obsolete Clearfix.

Short bits of CSS for your break time. (Screenshot: Noupe)

For each snippet, you get the complete source code, a demo syntax, and a detailed explanation, as well as information about the browser compatibility. The goal is that no snippet takes you more than 30 seconds to completely understand and be able to use it.

One could call this fast food for page designers. This is true, though the collection is a lot more nutritious than the average burger.

Some may say that these snippets have to be some repair kit, something that you have on you at pretty much all times. Personally, I don’t feel like it was necessary to be able to do anything off the cuff.

To me, knowing where to look something up is sufficient. And “30 Seconds of CSS” is just waiting for me to want to look something up right in my toolbox.

Purchasing free products does not have to look and feel like going through a bargain table. Pixelify shows, that it can be both elegant and comfortable.

Where Are the Platforms for the Distribution of Freebies?

Mats-Peter Forss is a minimalist designer from the Finnish place Rauma. He’s been selling his digital design products via the Creative Market for years. He’s also active in the creative social networks, like Behance, for example.

He got the idea behind Pixelify, the service that I’ll introduce you to today when he noticed that neither the popular marketplaces nor the allegedly specialized social networks for creatives offered a simple way of distributing free design elements. While traditionally, the markets struggle with the most radical of all price tags, social networks aren’t really suitable for the distribution.

Pixelify.net: Landing Page (Screenshot: Noupe)

If you want to hand out a font for free, you can already do that. The process is not very streamlined, though. At least, that’s Forss’ conclusion, which led him to create an own service, which strongly resembles the Creative Market in terms of design, but is exclusively dedicated to the distribution of freebies.

Forss’ aim was to gain popularity via freebies, in order to establish his brand, allowing for better promotion of his commercial offers. And, because he’s a nice guy, and also because he knows that he could never fill a popular freebie service on his own, he set up Pixelify as a community.

Pixelify: Best Practice in Every Aspect

Designers from all around the world now have an easy way of handing out their elements via Pixelify. In order to avoid abuse, Forss promises to watch over the entire curating process. After all, Pixelify is not a filesharing website, and Forss isn’t Kim Schmitz Dotcom.

Pixelify is very well made and very easy on the eyes of the viewer. Nothing disruptive, everything flows. The design can’t be criticized Although the service has only been online for a few weeks, its database already contains a considerable amount of design elements.

Clean grid, and easy license selection. (Screenshot: Noupe)

The findability of the resources you’re interested in is provided in different ways. If you’re looking for something specific, use the search field with free text input. If you’re looking for something specific, but you only have a category in mind, use the category navigation. But don’t be surprised that some categories are still completely empty. Forss has already prepared the website for all navigation elements in advance.

Prominently Placed, Simple Licenses Give a Sense of Security

The freebies have one of two possible licenses. They’re either labeled as free for personal use or as free for commercial use. The former means you can use them for all purposes that don’t make you money, including clubs and other non-profits, while the latter means that they’re also fully available for commissions. Another neat thing is the fact that the landing page has a switch that lets you choose to only display elements with a commercial license, only those with a personal license, or to simply show them all.

The operator’s hand-picked recommendations are shown in the lists of the elements with the most downloads, or the most popular, or freshest ones, depending on the upload date. Forss also recommends designers that he considers especially notable.

Conclusion: Add Pixelify to your bookmarks. The project has potential.

Color fonts are, as the name already tells you, colorful fonts. The usage of colors in fonts is not new, as it is almost a staple of graphic design. The new thing about color fonts is the fact that they come with colors and don’t have to be colored manually, as it is the case for your favorite graphics editor.

Now, the Colored Fonts Are Taking Over the Browsers

Depending on their layout, color fonts are very complex in terms of display. Even the usage of multiple different colors within a single letter is possible. In the graphics software section, since version CC 2018, both Adobe giants Photoshop and Illustrator support the new standard, officially called OpenType-SVG-Font.

However, browser support would be way more interesting for daily usage. Here, Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge are the pioneers. Both browsers have been supporting the format for a while. More information on the background of color fonts can be read in this article here at your favorite magazine for designers and developers.

For a few days now, people have been working on Fonts.lol, a new font forge with the goal to exclusively offer colorful fonts of the new standard. So far, there’s a total of two. That’s not a lot. However, the overall market for color font material is still pretty small. Thus, this is mainly about experimenting with the new design element.

Both fonts currently available in Fonts.lol‘s arsenal are free to download and use for personal purposes. Commercial use requires a charged license. In return, the charged version also gives you access to the raw material as an EPS.

In order to adjust the fonts to the desired color scheme, you’d either have to use Illustrator or the Color Font Generator available on Fonts.lol. The latter is the far more comfortable option. Simply define the desired colors via picker or by entering the Hex value. After that, just download the adjusted OTF font to your local hard drive.

This web app by Stephane Lyver delivers automatic image optimization for the common formats JPEG, PNG, GIF, and SVG. The compression is able to either work lossy or lossless. The strength of compression is not adjustable by the user, Compressor.io will always try to reduce to the max. And this works astonishingly perfect…

Compressor.io: Web App Based on Recent Technology

Stephane Lyver is a front-end developer from France. Compressor.io is not his first personal project. Besides quite a number of successfully finished client projects, Stephane is also the mind behind DBfreebies.co, Q-R-Code.fr, and Iconsparadise.com. Technically he prefers to work with HTML5/CSS3 and AngularJS, as well as PHP and jQuery. Stephane’s toolbox is up to date, no doubt about that.

Compressor.io is a fully automated optimizer, trained to reduce the most common image formats to the smallest possible size. The promise is, that even in lossy mode, the difference will not be visible to the eye. Although this may be a bit over the top, I successfully tested a JPEG to be reduced by 82 percent, with very little visible losses. For web use, this is totally sufficient.

Compressing JPEG and PNG can also be done in lossless mode. Possible file size reductions are smaller then. Under the hood of Compressor.io you’ll find familiar faces, such as pngquant or JpegOptim. What makes the difference is the automatically done intelligent choice of the best technology on any given image.

Once a file is reduced in size, you can store it to your Google Drive, your Dropbox or plain download it. Check the two halves of the compressed image visually, where the left side shows the uncompressed, the right side presents the compressed image. I couldn’t distinguish too many differences.

Compressor.io: More Features Planned

Stephane works on bringing you Compressor.io a desktop app for offline use. In the future, it will also be possible to upload a batch of photos in one go. Today you can only upload one file after another, which consumes quite a bit of time. Furthermore, the upload limit of 10 MB per file is supposed to get elevated.

All in all, Compressor.io is a proper solution for compressing the most common image formats. With future enhancements, it might even grow to become the place you go to when you need the best results in file compression. At the time of this writing, I still rely on TinyPNG and JpegMini to achieve the best results. I’ll be waiting for the batch uploads feature and the offline app. But anyway, already today Compressor.io is a very capable solution.

As a graphic and web designer, we’re faced with plenty of tasks and challenges every day. This includes the design of logos, as well as a harmonious combination of colors and gradients. Whether these tasks should be handed over to an online tool is subject to discussion. With ShapeFactory, you at least have the option to do so – and it’s quite fun.

The ShapeFactory offers four different design tools that make it easy for you to build logos, as well create color compositions and gradients. ShapeFactory itself is designed in a very appealing way, and an interesting tool, especially as a source of inspiration for your own designs, or to simply pass some time.

Create Logos With the Logo Tool

The logo tool lets you create a logo in one minute, by entering the wordmark, and choosing a font. There are tons of different fonts available to choose from. This includes simple sans-serif and serif fonts, but also fancy and modern fonts, which are very striking, making them a great choice for logos.

Logo Tool

Subsequently, add a logo by choosing one of the different categories, which include “optical illusion”, or “cloud”. There are 13 categories in total. Each one contains several shapes for you to choose from.

In no time, the tool builds a logo by combining text and image in different ways. This results in a preview of multiple suggestions, some of which have the label and the logo next to each other, while others put them below each other.

Additionally, you get to pick a color combination and download your logo for 40 USD.

10 additional USD get you a logo animation on top of that. If you want to spend that much on an automatically created logo is up to you. However, it can be very interesting to let it pump out some logo variants in order to prepare for a new project.

Combine Colors With the Pigment Tool

The harmonious combination of colors can be just as challenging as the design of logos. Because of that, the ShapeFactory also provides a tool for this job.

Pigment Tool

The pigment tool helps you create appealing color combinations. To do so, choose the intensity and brightness via sliders, and you’ll get plenty of suggestions for new coloring. Aside from two prime colors that are geared to each other, different shades of the colors are suggested as well. This way, you’ll get a palette full of colors for your next project in the blink of an eye.

Afterward, the colors are available as a palette for Sketch or Adobe. You can also download them as an SVG file.

The colors are displayed as hexadecimal and RGB values. A Pantone color for print usage is included too. The SVG file displays each color as a card with the different color values.

Gradients Made Easy With the Gradient Tool

The gradient tool works in a very similar way, using the same method to generate color gradients that you can download as an SVG file, or copy into your clipboard as a CSS snippet.

Gradient Tool

Here, two colors are combined to a linear gradient. A slider allows you to define the angle of the gradients. Just like the pigment tool, this tool lets you limit your selection to a specific color.

Color Images With the Duotone Tool

Apart from black and white photos, duotone photos are some of the most charismatic images. Here’s where the final tool of the ShapeFactory comes into play.

Duotone Tool

The duotone tool is an easy way to color images. Simply choose two specific colors, or have the tool create a color combination based on one color. Images from the photo site Unsplash are used as examples. The live preview shows you what the images look like with the selected colors applied.

However, you also have the option to search the Unsplash catalog for specific images. Alternatively, just upload and color your own image file.

When done with that, the colored file is available for download.

Conclusion

Professional graphics and web designers probably won’t get much use out of the ShapeFacory. After all, Illustrator and Photoshop provide way more options. The design of logos and finding colors, gradients, and the proper image aesthetic are part of a creative worker’s craft.

However, ShapeFactory has a very appealing and sophisticated design, and playing around with the individual tools is fun. ShapeFactory’s advantage is that the results are shown on the fly, with multiple versions on the screen at once.

It’s definitely worth checking out, even if you may never use the tools in practice. It might still be a source of inspiration here and there.